Fighting our way through 1st year uni (starting Sept 17)

[HSMMaCM]

Continuing the previous thread.

Exams, assessments, essays, etc.

Support, or lack of it.

Will they all get accommodation for next year and can they cook a balanced meal yet.

[LittleSpace]

I have two piles of stuff in the garage and soon to be three piles. It is taking over!

It is lovely to see them though.

[extinctspecies]

Yay, DS has got a job for a few weeks! Data entry ... much better pay than the supermarket too. Hope he can stick it out.

[Xenia]

juggling, yes I've got 2 grandchildren already - we were on holiday with them and the children last week actually. It was lovely. They are so cute, not that the teenagers aren't nice too but it's a different cuteness. (Table tennis table is folded up in the garage actually but it's still in my way as I work at home and it's in front of my work files but cannot be got rid of or sold apparently even though no one ever plays it). I now have 6 teenagers in my house (including mine) although one isn't staying over night - just a school friend of my boys from last year.

[RedHelenB]

That's great news Extinct.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Grandchildren do sound lovely Xenia - definitely something I look forward to, and with two DC I should have a reasonable chance.
Otherwise Great Aunt or Auntie Granny will have to do!
Not too soon though as DS is only sixteen 😊
DD slightly older but just finishing first year Uni ( of course, that's the thread! ) So hope she takes the time to enjoy her twenties relatively unencumbered
and maybe even settles into a career or at least a sense of what she'd like to do.
She's enjoying being a student and doing well with that so maybe a bit of research and further study could be interesting for her.

[ErrolTheDragon]

DD phoned this evening, all her friends must have been otherwise occupied and she was bored with no work to do so we had a good long witter.

[Horsemad]

DS arrived home on Sunday - we've run out of milk twice since then, despite buying in extra!!

It's good to have him home though

[ErrolTheDragon]

Bucking the trend by now having a bit less of DD's stuff... DH off to move her from uni to summer job accommodation taking her double duvet, pillows, a bin, and several of our books. Of course, when he returns he'll doubtless have piles of whatever she doesn't need, and her bike.

[RedHelenB]

That sounds great Errol.DD working this weekend so no lie one for me as it's early starts!

[Xenia]

We will be on to the 2nd year at university before we know it. All well here. Witrh 5 children it was likely I would get some grandchildren so not surprising but very very lovely. and their mother works like I did and she had her husband bought a property before they had children so it's very sensible - similar pattern to us (not that babies aren't always welcomed of course). We have one house guest today who I think leaves today. As you can commute on the tube to London for a summer job from our house it's reasonably convenient although not like living in Mayfair or something like that I suppose.

Errol, one of mine has left most of his stuff in his university room (thankfully as the house is full of stuff - although the extra duvets, sheets and towels they had me buy a few months ago for a friends' Easter visit that never happened because they thought my bedding was sub standard and very old came in with our 3 lovely student guests last week). He is going back in early July to move it to their rented house. I suppose there is not much anyone would steal except a colour laser printer.

[brizzledrizzle]

Busy here, I'm joining the ranks of the undergraduates myself in September. Dd has been away with her boyfriend for a week, she's now bought paint and is decorating her room and pottering around doing whatever she fancies. She's just done a week of school runs for a friend of mine and that's paid for her paint, she's also sanded down some childhood furniture to upcycle it.

Grandchildren sound great just not yet.

[Needmoresleep]

Yay, DD passed. A huge relief, not least because resits are in early July and between now and then she has a number of placements still to complete. It is not uncommon for medics to fail an exam and she was not sure what level was required so did not know how she had done. She will be going back tomorrow. She also starts a month earlier than others, so other than a week of volunteering at a residential camp, she has no plans to get a job, though will probably pick up a few casual days with a previous employer and will take driving lessons. My understanding is that she wont really get another full summer holiday so she might as well make the most of it. She seems to have spent a lot less in her third term, so has some money saved, and has not eaten into the remains of her gap year earnings. Very luckily her new accomodation starts the day before her hall contract ends, so I will go down to help move everything.

[bigTillyMint]

Congrats to NMS DD! And anyone else I've missed. DDs results not out till start of July?

DD is off on hol with friends for 2 weeks in the early hours tomorrow, though we've barely seen her since she's been home!

[Xenia]

Congratulations. (We had a second house guest I didn't know about last night - other son's school friend (saw him leave at 8) - they were out late; I wonder if he stuck to his aim not to get an expensive Uber home but use night tube or bus)

[HSMMaCM]

DDsaid some of her course mates were having trouble selecting year 2 options, then someone said 'if you've failed year 1, you won't be able to select year 2 options' and they were right. Seeing how many failed has made DD more determined to make sure she passes next year. She did say there were large swathes of people aiming for a 40% pass, so she's not surprised.

[bigTillyMint]

Crikey HSM, that's scary I think DD said she had chosen her options for next year. And she should have passed given grades all year...

[Horsemad]

DS's idea of 'packed' and mine differ greatly...

[Needmoresleep]

BTM, they seem to have decided to challenge medics by first having them sit exams after everyone else had finished, and then scheduling resits well before everyone else, with, in theory, only a couple of weeks to revise, the same two weeks as some would have placements.

Luckily they marked them early and sent texts saying provisional pass/fail results were out. Pass is enough. The idea of having to drop everything to swot, without knowing what you had failed and by how much, was pretty awful. I understand it is not unusual to fail something during the five years. Medics are generally straight A students, so was difficult for DD to know whether she had done well enough. Lecturers had already warned that you could not expect to know everything in the exam. It is clear she is very relieved.

[RedHelenB]

In dds year only about half of the dentistry course passed everything and she got a congratulatory email. THIS is her last long summer holiday too and she's wanting to work as much as possible.

[Haffdonga]

Well done NMS's dd . About 20 of the 200 or so medics failed in ds's year. He also found it impossible to gauge if he'd done enough compared to A levels with all their sample papers and mark schemes.

It's also his last summer. On his course the second years go back at the beginning of August. That'll be hard for their little student systems!

[LooseHipsWobbleShips]

Good to hear of so many successful DCs and no resits yet. DS was torn between medicine and science at uni- he chose the latter but is considering a conversion course after degree. He's been home for a 10 day break after exams but back for final week parties and packing up before home. No exam results here until mid-July.
Hoping next summer there will be opportunities for course related work.

[brizzledrizzle]

No results here yet - they don't come through until the end of next week at the earliest.

[extinctspecies]

Ds has to move out of his uni accommodation & into his new shared house at the end of the week.

I asked him what they were doing about insurance & got a blank look...

Obviously his uni accommodation included insurance as part of the deal. But he will need it in the new place.

Anyone got a well-organised DC who has already sorted this out?

DS thinks that because I made him take out special mobile phone & laptop insurance after one too many accidents, he's now covered ...

[LIZS]

Check if your household policy covers him in a student house. Ours did as long as he locked his room .

[ErrolTheDragon]

I think DDs insurance is covered by her college next year even though she's in a house but she needed some for her summer accommodation. She discussed this with DH not me (he is an assiduous reader of small print) but I think the letting agent offered some sort of appropriate policy.

DH wasn't very impressed by the place she's living but it'll probably do her good as she's not exactly having to live in the real world the rest of the time. While we were discussing whether she'd need any different stuff next year I asked if the house had a vacuum cleaner. 'Mum, the cleaner will bring one. We get a cleaner every weekday'. (Yes, she knows this is not the norm!)

She had her first day at work yesterday- She was too knackered to talk to me after that and then having to shop and cook but I gather that in a large open plan office she was the only female (though they do have what her boss described as 'girls' on reception. She decided best not to ask if they were on work experience.)This will probably be good for her too.